Am I the only parent that finds Parent Conferences scarier than Halloween? If this is your first time rest assured, it’s not that bad. See it as more of an opportunity to assess how involved the teacher is with your child. How well does the teacher know your child’s strengths, weaknesses, personality etc. You’ve heard your kid describe the teacher, repeat the teachers mantras, put on a “teacher voice”. This is a chance to see for yourself.
Parent Conferences are to discuss a students behaviors in the classroom. The word behaviors immediately raises alarms. Especially if your school does “Targeted” conferences to discuss their “Progress”. It came to a point that I had to understand what this school wanted from my child that she was not producing. I had to do an in house assessment. Was I neglecting schoolwork? Every year we adjusted homework settings, increasingly strict as her work grew harder. Until last year she had a teacher whom I felt “saw her”. I disagreed with this teachers politics. My eyes rolled after I heard her name 50 million times. But this one teacher admittedly found a way to balance my daughters needs.
This was the first teacher I felt embraced her creativity as opposed to pushing her to fit into a box. “Every Child Grows At Their Own Rate” seems to go out the window when you hit elementary school. If your child isn’t progressing at the standards set by the state, letters are sent home to talk to your parents. But when these teachers begin to double as mentors, it’s time to talk to your teachers.
Express Yourself On A Shirt 